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On the verge of a wireless world

OTTAWA — An old proverb says the best things in life come in small packages. If this holds true then a revolutionary new transmitter package for wireless internet and network devices invented by a pair of Carleton University PhD students might very well be the greatest of them all – a pinhead-sized chip contained within a package the size of a fingernail.

 

The TX chip contains a small wireless transmitter that allows it to communicate with a larger transmission antenna within the greater package structure.
The TX chip contains a small wireless transmitter that allows it to communicate with a larger transmission antenna within the greater package structure.

Upon commencing their PhD studies in 2005, Atif Shamim and Muhammad Arsalan decided they wanted to work together on a project, but the two Pakistan-born scientists had trouble finding that one perfect application for their two areas of interest: sensors and wireless antennas.

“For our PhD topic we were both inclined towards a practical application which was usable, not just another thesis that was 200 pages and nobody would ever read it,” says Arsalan.

Transmission start . . .

'It’s like if you want to leave your house: you can go through the living room and then out through the front door – that’s the normal way of doing it. ... But all the life is in the kitchen, right? So you could just go from the kitchen and right out the back door … that’s what we’ve done … we haven’t followed the regular route out to the front.'

They soon joined a collaborative project between Carleton University and Ottawa-based biomedical company Best Medical Canada Ltd, designing a new wireless version of a sensor called a dosimeter to monitor radiation doses in patients during cancer treatments. Within several months, the pair successfully created a smaller, more efficient, and successfully wireless model – featuring an operational range of two metres. They quickly began to probe other applications for this technology.

“The utility of that device is very limited,” says Arsalan. “Maybe nuclear plants or outer space, but the technology is usable to make any sensor wireless, so why not just use it for a more common purpose?”

This was the spark for Vital Signs Monitoring Technologies, a company that the two men are attempting to establish to market their wireless sensors for monitoring various data in patients, such as heart-rate, temperature and blood pressure.

“When you go to the hospital you see patients in the critical care unit and they’re always tangled in wires,” says Arsalan. “We did some market research and we found that there was a huge need for such devices.”

. . . Signal interrupted . . .

Seeking to improve upon their original creation, Shamim added a more powerful antenna to the circuit to increase the signal range. He was successful, but at the cost of a significantly larger consumption of power, leaving him searching to find a way to maintain the gain in range without the side effect.

“I figured out that if we removed the amplifiers somehow – those connections that go from the circuit to the external antenna – we would save a lot of power,” says Shamim. “This means that we would have to make some kind of [smaller] wireless connection with the antenna [within the transmitter itself]…which is totally unconventional.”

Shamim did just that, removing several previously essential components from the chip in the process, which in turn looks to significantly decrease production costs.

Langis Roy, chair of the department of electronics at Carleton University, and PhD student Atif Shamim analyze a wireless transmitter chip inside a radio-interference insulated room.
Langis Roy, chair of the department of electronics at Carleton University, and PhD student Atif Shamim analyze a wireless transmitter chip inside a radio-interference insulated room.

“It’s like if you want to leave your house: you can go through the living room and then out through the front door – that’s the normal way of doing it,” says Langis Roy, the duo's PhD advisor and chair of the Carleton University department of electronics. “But all the life is in the kitchen, right? So you could just go from the kitchen and right out the back door…that’s what we’ve done…we haven’t followed the regular route out to the front.”

Shamim says he has frequently been asked how he came up with this innovation when no one else in the industry could.

“They were not stuck in their thesis as I was: I was trying to graduate,” he joked.

“You don’t normally design functional circuitry in the package, the package is just an afterthought,” says Roy of Shamim’s design. “Now we’re actually engineering the package. That’s the real story.”

. . . New transmission

Shamim and Arsalan are currently pushing to finish their respective PhDs this spring, but both say they have become completely swamped by the business aspects of VSM Technologies as of late – trying to secure the patents for their innovation, and establish a solid foundation for their company.

They are confident that the company and their wireless sensor innovation will be a true culmination to their original thesis project, and they feel it is a sign of things to come – for both themselves, and the world of electronics.

“I was looking for a neat application for these small transmitters. ...That’s where the trend is: make is cheaper, smaller, more efficient, so I think this is a good step towards that,” says Shamim.

“It’s just a matter of time when these things will be more economically feasible and adoptable for everyone,” Arsalan agreed. “That will be the future of any sensor: the wires have to go.”


Interactive graphic by Ryan Price

 

Related Links

IEEE: Wireless medical sensors of increasing importance [PDF]

Harvard: Wireless medical sensor research

Battery life in mobile devices remains a top concern for consumers and manufacturers.

 

 

Awards timeline

Over the course of their PhD studies, Atif Shamim and Muhammad Arsalan - the dynamic duo of electronics - have received numerous accolades for their research on wireless transmitter packages:

  • November 2007:
    1st Place Tie: SMC (Strategic Electronics Council) Industrial Collaboration Award - for their presentation entitled DOSIMETER: Wireless Microchips in LTCC Package for Biomedical and Space Applications.
  • December 2007
    ITAC (Information Technology Association of Canada) Strategic Microelectronics Council Industrial Collaboration Award – for their work on the wireless dosimeter project (an innovative project that has the greatest potential for commercialization).
  • March 2008
    1st Place: Wes Nicol Business Plan Competition - Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business - for "Vital Signs Monitoring Technologies" business plan.
  • April 2008
    OCRI Student Researchers of the Year: Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation - for their work in the field of wireless biomedical sensors.
  • May 2008
    2nd Place - Nicol Launchpad Venture Creation Competition [National] - for "VSM Technologies" business plan.
  • October 2008
    Best Paper: European Wireless Technology Conference - on wireless transmitter innovation.
  • January 2009
    1st Place: Enterprize Canada Entrepreneurial Championship [Central Region] - for "VSM Technologies" business plan.
  • February 2009
    1st Place: Enterprize Canada Entrepreneurial Championship [National Competition] - for "VSM Technologies " business plan.

 

Innovation implementation

Though past uses of this type of technology have included space and nuclear experiments, Shamim and Arsalan's creation could have immediate effects in the world of medicine and consumer electronics.

Carleton University professor Andy Adler, the Canada Research Chair in biomedical engineering, says that wireless systems could significantly decrease hospital costs and even extend patient monitoring to the comfort of their own homes — in turn freeing up much needed space in hospitals for additional patients.

“Hospitals have a massive wiring problem,” says Adler.  “Every new operating theatre has more and more units and computers involved.  If you’ve got five people involved and each person looks at three different things, that alone is 15 screens involved and all the wires that go with them."

Nathan Dalgleish, product specialist with Best Medical Canada Ltd. agrees, adding the change would benefit the patients as well.

"If a doctor needs a patient to reposition themselves or move around, wires limit the amount of motion they can do,” says Dalgleish.  “Anything you use on a person, if you can make it wireless it just makes it that much more user friendly.”

"There are concerns about reliability [and incompatibility with consumer grade products]," adds Adler, "but wireless is going to be big."

Aside from the medical world, Shamim and Arsalan say this technology has potential to lower power consumption and increase battery life in anything running a wireless signal; including: cellphones, laptops, and radio frequency IDs.

As a result, there has been a great amount of interest in the innovation from companies around the world; some local, and some a little more well-known.

“RIM Canada contacted us, right now they’re evaluating our technology,” says Arsalan.  “They’ve got all the papers and some basic information and hopefully they’ll get back to us soon with a proposal.”

Though the hype surrounding this innovation has been huge, and the technology shows plenty of promise, Shamim cautions that people shouldn't jump to any conclusions over its capabilities.

 

 

© Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication